Her granddaughter, Larissa Wood, hadn't told her family she was joining the Army until she had. So Carol Wood did the one thing she thought might help them both. She put pen to paper and wrote - letters and poems. And she mailed them to Larissa at basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo.

Pfc. Larissa Wood

It surprised Larissa when she received the first of her grandmother's letters. She didn't know she could get mail while in basic training.

Carol Wood kept sending them at least once a week. Often she included a poem. Larissa began reading them to her fellow soldiers. Amid basic training's demands and deprivations during one of the hottest summers on record, Carol Wood's letters and poems brought relief.

"They were really heartfelt," said Larissa, now a private first class at Ft. Hood, Texas. "You have to go through so much more to send out a letter than you do to send a text message. It has that heartfelt sense behind it."

The Woods are from the town of Clay. Larissa, 20, is a Liverpool High School graduate. She attended Onondaga Community College for a semester before enlisting in the Army in May of 2011.

She joined the Army because she needed "something more exciting," she said in a text. "I needed a fast change." She works as a crew member in an Avenger air defense artillery team.

Carol Wood, 69, owned and ran Carol's Antiques Art & Gifts, which had its last location on 7th North Street. She now helps her son, Brian Wood, who is Larissa's father, at his Syracuse frame shop on the corner of Wolf and Salina streets.

Carol Wood's lilting, cadenced poems capture the experience on both sides of a deployment - the soldier and the loved ones left behind. The more Carol Wood wrote and learned about soldiers' experience through her granddaughter, the more she realized how much military service demands, and the toll it can take on soldiers. She heard about the rise in suicide attempts among soldiers and she wrote poems of encouragement.

One called "Hold on Another Day" starts :

At times the hopeless feeling
May seem more than you can bear
In the darkness of your anguish
You can't see the ones who care.

Carol Wood at Brian's Gallery, which is owned by her son, Brian Wood, on Wolf Street. She has been sending letters and poems to her granddaughter, Pfc. Larissa Wood and the platoon at Fort Hood where she's been dubbed "Platoon Nana." David Lassman

The full version as well as other poems can be seen here. nannapoems.pdf

"These poems and messages of encouragement aren't helping anyone if they're stuck in a drawer," she said.

Larissa told her grandmother she was sharing her poems and that people were loving them. Her grandmother asked for names of soldiers who weren't getting mail.

"I wouldn't even tell people that I gave my nana their name," Larissa said.

At mail call, bewildered soldiers studied envelopes with "Carol Wood" stamped in the corner, and cast looks toward Larissa that asked, "Is this connected to you?"

"Yeah, it's my Granma," Larissa would say.

They dubbed Carol Wood "Platoon Nana." Larissa told them her grandmother didn't look like her. She looked like "a diva."

Larissa alerted her grandmother about a soldier with a birthday approaching. Platoon Nana sent him one of her surprise letters and a poem.

"He came up to me after and gave me the biggest hug," said Larissa. "He said 'You know what? That letter from your nana was the only letter I got from anyone. It really meant the world to me.'"

Carol Wood made it to Larissa's graduation from boot camp. Without being identified, the soldiers in Larissa's unit knew who she was right away. They recognized the diva.

Carol Wood has shared her poems at Clear Path for Veterans, a facility in Chittenango that offers support to returning military veterans.

"She has found a niche," said Melissa Spicer, a co-founder of Clear Path. "Not every veteran or soldier is the same. You need options, and from listening to the military personnel and veterans that come here, sometimes letters and poems speak to them."

"It's strange how the messages come," said Carol Wood. "I believe with all my heart that they're inspired. I know I'm not a great poet. It is not the art of poetry. It's the heart of poetry. As concisely as I can I try to let people know, I understand."